I AM A BADASS!!!

Never use all capital letters when you write. It gives the impression of shouting. For a serious writer, it’s a sign of weakness: You should be able to convey your meaning by word choice, not typography. Ditto the exclamation points.

I AM A BADASS!!!

Chas is losing patience with the pretty girls like me.

“Look,” he says, digging his fingers into his hair and tugging.

“We all know about pretty and light.” He tippy-toes, fluttering his arms.

“That’s not tango,” he says. “Tango is heavy. It’s into the floor. It’s this attitude.” He snarls, grabs Gaia and drives her around the room.

“You,” he says to the women. “You need to get this. Tango is nasty and—”

“Why can’t it be pretty and light?” asks the other ballet dancer among us. “Why can’t it be beautiful?”

“Nasty is beautiful,” Chas says.

No. Ethereal is beautiful. Floating on air—exquisite. You might think it’s fragile and weak. Think again. It takes stevedore strength to be airy. Think Michael Jordan. Think Emmett Smith. Ballerinas are powerhouses. Men, you should fear us. We can take you out.

Nasty is grinding. Gum on the sole of your shoe. Spit on the sidewalk, condoms and worse in the gutter. Piss stains on buildings. BO. Nasty is the switchblade in every man’s pocket. Nasty is Detroit, where I come from. It’s not pretty or light, but…

“Nasty is earthy,” Chas adds. “It’s the street.”

Talk on, brother, I hear you now. Eight Mile. Motor City. Motown. Where I come from. Nasty is fat-assed women, my sisters included. They turn heads, they are gorgeous. No one can resist the gleam in their eye.

Ballet don’t fly here.

Nasty is funk, but it also is soul. Our dancing is not dirty but real. It comes from the piss and spit and switchblade, the resilient, undefeatable heart, the incorrigible womb. We are the female gods of the street.

Women have moves, and we don’t need feeble-assed men to make them. We dance with our girlfriends or take the beat straight. Yeah, it pounds us and yeah, we like that. Yeah, there’s a switchblade in every man’s pocket—and my pocket too. Do what you can to keep up, boys.

I AM A BADASS!!!

On my radio: Eartha. Aretha. Fannie Lou Hamer. Mary Blige. Pissed-off women, taking no shit. The first someone who tried to kill me was a girl. I was 10, she was maybe 13. She pulled the switchblade out of her pocket. My older sister carried a hunting knife, my little sister a blackjack. My mother wielded an ax to keep a carload of drunks away from her girls. I ran away from the knife; we little rabbits have our own brand of strength.

Chas and Gaia go at it again. He is a 350 LT1, gazillion horsepower, overmuscled Stingray Corvette. Barely holding it in check, he drives her. But wait!—she is a powerhouse, too.

“We are communicating with our bodies,” Gaia says as she strides backward. “I am saying, ‘Oh, I hear you. What is it you want? I hear you say something, I’m not sure what. Give me more, tell me more. Oh yes, now I see. Thank you. I go.’

“Followers: Don’t go until he makes it clear,” Gaia admonishes. “He has to do the work before we respond.”

This raises the question every man who has ever owned a muscle car has pondered: Who’s driving whom?

Now Chas and Gaia take turns dancing with the women. Their mission: Smoke the ballerinas. They’re gunning for me, but I am ready for them.

Gaia goes first. “Like this,” she says. Then she says something else I don’t hear.

I am in Motown on a mid-July night with a breeze off the river that’s caught fire again. Everyone is steaming. I get my groove on. You gunning for me? Bring it home, baby.

“Yes,” Gaia says uncertainly. She senses something.

I free my Inner Brick Shithouse. I move my fat ass with one hand on my switchblade. Keep up if you can, Gaia. This ballerina is bringing the street home to you.

“Good!” Gaia says. The sweet little tango song ends. She walks me across the floor. “You are going to be a bad-ass tango dancer,” she adds softly.

You are what you are right this minute. For the rest of the night, I am smiling.

I … little rabbit … pretty ballerina … thin-skinned and wary and too tender in the heart …

I am a badass.